


If This Is A Sweet Kiss

by Artemis1000



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Complicated Relationships, F/F, Fpreg, Magical Pregnancy, The Law of Surprise (The Witcher)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-24
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:06:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23687383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis1000/pseuds/Artemis1000
Summary: It was known that the Law of Surprise could get you a great number of things. From a puppy to a child, it was said. Yennefer had mostly known it to get people worthless trinkets and every now and then, a stringy chicken that barely even made for a good pot of soup.With all of that said and done, she wasn’t particularly pleased to have Tissaia throw the coin at her.“A blessing,” she explained unnecessarily, her voice haughty and her face closed off as if this entire trip just to fling a grimy piece of copper at Yennefer’s head had been a terrible imposition on her.Yennefer is gifted a blessing of fertility by Tissaia. Neither of them expected that this would bind them together through a child which as far as the laws of magic are concerned, is both of theirs. Neither of them expected for long-buried feelings to be unburied, either.
Relationships: Tissaia de Vries/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 25
Kudos: 234
Collections: Unusual_Bearings_2020





	If This Is A Sweet Kiss

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reeby10](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reeby10/gifts).



It was known that the Law of Surprise could get you a great number of things. _From a puppy to a child_ , it was said. Yennefer had mostly known it to get people worthless trinkets and every now and then, a stringy chicken that barely even made for a good pot of soup.

Even with the off chance of the surprise being an unborn child, Yennefer had never thought to use the Law of Surprise to become a mother. Selfish she may be in the eyes of most people including her own, but something in her rebelled against taking back the choice she had been robbed off by taking from others, even more so than it rebelled against leaving it up to destiny’s whims instead of making her own destiny.

With all of that said and done, she wasn’t particularly pleased to have Tissaia throw the coin at her.

“A blessing,” she explained unnecessarily, her voice haughty and her face closed off as if this entire trip just to fling a grimy piece of copper at Yennefer’s head had been a terrible imposition on her.

Yennefer’s fist closed around the coin. She felt the magic hum in it, though the coin was only the physical manifestation of something far greater.

“What kind of blessing?” she demanded, already bristling, her own scorn primed and armed. She narrowed her eyes, fighting off a pang of indignant hurt as she realized this would be the next attempt to make her return to Aretuza. If she thought Yennefer could be bought… “If you have come to bribe me with trinkets: fuck off.”

Tissaia looked very royal and royally vexed with not a hair out of place, her dress blood-red and as severe as her face. “Quit your theatrics. I won it through the Law of Surprise, and I have no use for a fertility blessing.”

She kept speaking but Yennefer heard nothing after _fertility blessing_. She sensed for the magic in the coin and it responded eagerly to the Chaos she bore within, the magical symbols it bore lighting up in response to her probing.

“Are you done gaping?” Tissaia’s voice cut through her fascination with the coin, making her look up and meet her eyes. “I’m sick and tired of watching your pathetic chase.” She pointed her chin at the coin. “This will give you what you want. Now quit making an embarrassment out of all of us.”

Yennefer was still too stunned to muster her usual scathing wit. She could only watch as Tissaia turned around on her heel and stalked away, walking away from her with more ferocity than she had ever seen her use before. She neither hesitated nor looked back.

Yennefer’s fingers closed around the coin once more. It warmed with the blessing within.

She thought of the woman who had given it to her and for a moment, just for a moment of weakness, she wished that things were different between them: that she could tell Tissaia how much this gift meant to her. For an even shorter moment, she wished it was one they could share. Then she succeeded in reminding herself that Tissaia held nothing but scorn for her, that she had made this gift only so Yennefer would stop bringing embarrassment to the entire Chapter.

Even now as her greatest desire was about to come true, _everything_ remained out of reach.

If it had happened to anyone else, Yennefer would have appreciated the irony.

For the shortest of times, Yennefer thought of scorning the gift.

She had wanted to reclaim control of her own life by regaining her fertility. She had wanted to regain what had been taken from her when she suffered terribly under the deformations of her body and was desperate enough that she would have paid any price to no longer be this victim in the mirror.

A blessing given like it was a coin thrown at a beggar would not help her gain back what had been stolen from her. It would not right the wrong. It would certainly not prove that Yennefer of Vengerberg stood stronger than any rules of magic or things called impossible.

She still believed so when she broke the coin and accepted the blessing into her body.

Tissaia’s gift didn’t right her wrongs but Yennefer wouldn’t throw away her chance at the closest she could come to _everything_ over wounded pride and foolish sentiments, either.

She could have the babe now and later reclaim the rest of what had been taken from her.

Three months later, she started to show.

Another month later, she finally succeeded to track down the leading expert on such blessings and learned something she hadn’t even considered: with Tissaia winning the blessing and giving it to Yennefer to be used, the blessing recognized _both_ of them as parents to this child of magic.

More poetically inclined minds would have said that Yennefer of Vengerberg breezed into Aretuza like a storm made flesh.

She thought of it as opening a portal right in the middle of the hateful bat’s stronghold and blasting through every door that stood between her and Tissaia de Vries.

Irony of ironies, she found her in the greenhouse lecturing a group of awed young girls just like she had when Yennefer first walked through these doors.

This time, she didn’t sneak and didn’t cower. The doors opened with a bang before her and she strode in, all fury and magic and a baby bump her tight black dress and fur coat did nothing to hide – after all, she had no intention to be coy in her victory over Chaos itself.

“Did you know?”

Tissaia cleared her throat. “Restraint is an extremely valuable skill in a sorceress,” she told the girls, though her eyes never strayed from glaring daggers at Yennefer, “and it is a skill some of us never master.”

Yennefer crossed the circle of desks and stopped right in front of Tissaia’s. She reached across it for the rectoress’s collar and hauled her forward by it. They came close, nearly close enough for their noses to touch. Nearly close enough for their mouths to kiss. “Did you know,” she ground out between clenched teeth, “that my child would be yours?”

On this day, Yennefer for the first time in her life had the pleasure of seeing the great Rectoress Tissaia de Vries completely speechless.

“I hope you are proud of yourself,” Tissaia said as soon as she closed the heavy doors behind them.

Yennefer stalked past her, ignoring her and her disapproval in favor of unabashedly studying Tissaia’s private quarters. Well, she would have ignored her anyway simply to be contrary but the chance to learn things about her life which she wouldn’t have shared under different circumstances was a perk which made ignoring her all the more satisfying.

“That spectacle was childish and unnecessary, not to mention reckless,” Tissaia continued, undeterred. Peering at her from the corner of her eyes, Yennefer found her standing in the middle of the room, looking just as disapproving as she sounded, her gaze sharp with a withering glare. “Both of us have enemies and rivals. I hope you realize your little fit of pique has already painted a target on this child before they are even born.”

Yennefer turned without hurry at all, her eyes narrowing at her as she took in Tissaia’s reaction, or the lack of it. Scorn, yes, but harshly was the only way they knew how to interact, harshness came to both of them far more easily than kindness, which they would only distrust. Their kindness was to be read between the lines.

“You care,” she said slowly, her voice full of disbelief. It wasn’t even affectation, she could truly barely believe what she was seeing in front of her – and yet…

Tissaia lifted her chin, all haughty indignation. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

A wolfish smile spread on Yennefer’s full red lips. “You care,” she repeated. She didn’t even try to keep the unabashed glee out of her voice. Victory had never tasted sweeter, or come more unexpected. “Tissaia de Vries actually cares about someone other than herself.”

Her lips thinned. “There are many things I care about, Yennefer, it’s you who never bothered to look past her own infantile obsession.”

“Not things,” Yennefer corrected, triumphant still. “People.”

“You did say the child is mine, didn’t you?” Tissaia responded, still looking brisk and haughty and just like she would when she was chiding a petulant student.

Yet she was here with Yennefer, chiding her not for her selfishness or her obsessions but for endangering their child. And had it not been her who…

“How did you get the blessing?” Yennefer asked, blurting out the question that was more of a demand before she could lose her nerve. For sometimes, very often indeed, it was easier not to know the truth – easier not to know that people cared. It was easier to walk away as long as nobody cared since you would have to walk away anyway sooner or later.

Yennefer of Vengerberg couldn’t walk away. Not yet. Instead, she walked closer, every purposeful step taking her closer to this woman who had always been unattainable perfection and so completely out of her reach even while Yennefer sought to surpass her.

She watched Tissaia stiffen and grow colder still like she was wrapping herself ever tighter in a cloak of sternness.

As she stalked towards her, Yennefer thought better of her question and reworded it into, “How long had you been trying to get this blessing?”

This time, emotion flickered over Tissaia’s face. It was only the tiniest, shortest crack in her mask but Yennefer had spent a great many years hunting for every crack in Tissaia’a mask. She couldn’t fool her.

She just… The triumph washed away, gone.

Something far more uncertain took its place and Yennefer’s purposeful steps faltered. She came to a halt just an arm’s length away from Tissaia.

“You _sought it out_ ,” she continued, incredulous. It had been a shot in the dark, she had never dared dream her shot would aim true. It left her breathless now and vaguely feeling like a rug was being pulled away under her feet.

“Your arrogance is even greater than I ever thought possible if you believe I would go on a wild goose chase just to cater to your childish whims.”

“And yet that’s exactly what you did.”

Tissaia scoffed and opened the door. “If you are done gloating now. I have classes to return to.”

“You did.” Yennefer’s perfectly painted lips shaped into a broad smile that showed too many teeth to be truly called friendly.

“Get out,” Tissaia hissed.

Yennefer’s smile widened and she said, “I don’t think I will.” She stepped towards Tissaia, who didn’t budge. Good, she would have been disappointed if she had. 

Tissaia, of course, continued to hold her ground. The only change was that her eyes got icier.

“You did this for me,” Yennefer marveled. “You sought out this blessing for me.” She stopped in front of Tissaia and met her eyes. She couldn’t read a thing in them, Tissaia had always been better than her at guarding her mind and her heart. “Why?”

“You wanted a child. I gave you a solution. Don’t question it.”

She grasped her wrist, holding her in place when Tissaia was about to leave in what looked like disgust, or maybe simply exasperation. “Why?” she asked once more.

Tissaia’s eyes regarded Yennefer in that cold, scrutinizing manner that had once made her feel like she fell short of all expectations and nowadays mostly just made her furious. “Are you a witch or not?”

The answer, clearly, was yes.

_…she looked down at her hand – Tissaia’s hand – and saw the coin. “Consider all debts paid,” she said with Tissaia’s mouth…_

_…she saw herself chugging back yet another professed miracle cure as if it were the cheapest wine and heard Tissaia’s sneer of, “pathetic” but what she felt was longing without disgust…_

_…she saw herself again, her lips painted red, shaped into a smile more of a sneer and what she felt at the sight was raw desire…_

_…harsh, barbed words that blurred together, only the timbre of their voices standing out indistinguishable, and a strange exhilarant joy at being challenged…_

_…”are you a witch or not?”…_

“Are we quite done playing children’s games, _piglet_?”

Yennefer stiffened, indignation burning through her at having this old teenage insult thrown in her face while she was still reeling, still trying to make sense of what she had discovered. It was just like Tissaia to give way only to promptly taint any ground you might win against her.

But she would not play. Tissaia was right, if only in this. They were done with childish games.

Yennefer grabbed the rectoress by the front of her prim and proper dress and hauled her in to claim her lips in a bruising kiss.

In these heart-stopping moments, Tissaia remained perfectly frozen and still against her, her lips still pinched into a thin line of disapproval and nothing about her softening or welcoming this kiss or anything else Yennefer had to offer her.

Cold started to spread out through her, starting where their lips fruitlessly touched, and she found something almost like laughter bubbling up in her. It figured Tissaia would be the one to remain unimpressed by all her beauty and seductiveness and even all the power she held at her fingertips.

These pinched lips parted and there was suddenly a strong hand yanking at the heavy necklace she wore as if it were a collar by which she could be hauled around – and wasn’t that sheer presumption as much like Tissaia as it was like Yennefer herself? She would have laughed if she hadn’t been too busy kissing her, unwilling to show any weakness and budge even an inch in this new theatre of war they had established.

Tissaia didn’t taste of much anything particular at all but to Yennefer, she tasted like having everything.

She held on, refusing to let their lips part, one kiss melting into the next and the next as she drew Tissaia closer. Tissaia graciously permitted it and kissed her back with equal fervor. She took her price by the hand in Yennefer’s hair, a grip too tight to be comfortable. She still hadn’t released her necklace either.

Tissaia was still holding on to the necklace when their lips finally parted.

Yennefer ran her tongue over the sting in her bottom lip and fought not to let it show how out of breath she was. “I would have thought you too fucking prim and proper to be the biting type,” she remarked.

Tissaia’s eyes flashed, it sent shivers down Yennefer’s spine and made her press herself flush against Tissaia, who betrayed herself only by a sharp flare of her nostrils. “I could fill entire libraries with all the things you believe to know yet don’t,” she shot back.

Yennefer’s lips shaped into a smile. A sharp one, for sure, but genuine. “I would like to see that.”

Tissaia pulled away, bringing distance between them again and leaving Yennefer feeling cold and strangely bereft.

She watched Tissaia sort herself out in front of the mirror while Yennefer herself was completely unconcerned about the state of her hair or her smeared lipstick. No, not quite. She cared. She rather wanted to see how Tissaia would react to seeing her so disheveled, and unable to ignore that she had been the one to put her in this state.

“You should stay in Aretuza,” she said, finally turning to face Yennefer again.

“Should I?”

“Until the child is born, at least. The pregnancy is inherently magical in nature. If there are difficulties, no place is better equipped to handle them.”

That sounded terribly logical and sensible and she may have been willing to give Tissaia the benefit of the doubt, except she felt the other woman’s eyes return time and again to her lips.

“I suppose,” Yennefer said, making a show of looking vaguely bored. “I wouldn’t want to deprive my child of her other mother.”

Tissaia froze. “Get out.” Her voice was curt but not hostile.

Yennefer smiled. “This is your Aretuza. You will know where to find me.”

Much to Yennefer’s surprise and secret delight, Tissaia did find her before she was forced to hunt her down even once.

To say that Tissaia de Vries was doting would have been wrong, Yennefer could have barely gotten the lie to pass her lips, not even ironically, without scoffing. Yet she showed her care for Yennefer and their unborn child in her own practical, brusque way.

She was relocated from the drafty guest chambers she had first claimed into larger and more comfortable rooms, chambers with an empty room which she could easily picture becoming the baby’s, if she chose to stay – which she, of course, did not, as she kept telling herself, for there was nothing for her in Aretuza. Her new chambers were warm and on the same hallway as Tissaia’s.

Yennefer had fought monsters and sorcerers and even bested destiny itself by having an impossible child, yet as her belly grew, she learned that pregnancy was a lot harder on her than she had ever expected. When she left Aretuza to take care of her own affairs, she tired more easily and walking proved a strain. More and more, she found herself secretly relieved to open a portal back to Aretuza, returning to all the comforts of something that felt almost like home – and felt like home most of all for it didn’t try to bind her, didn’t try to diminish her or own her, as so many of her noble benefactors and admirers had tried.

Tissaia understood. She felt her eyes on her, burning with desire, and sensed it in every oh so casual touch, but when Yennefer met her eyes in challenge and told her, “I won’t be put on a leash,” she only scoffed and said, “There is no need to state the obvious.”

Tissaia’s caring came in a hundred small ways, in the magic of Aretuza which she shared freely with her, and its secrets as freely as could be expected. It came in the candy from faraway lands that appeared in her room when she had barely even begun to figure out what her craving was for. It came in words as sharp as ever but not as hurtful as once, the verbal duels enjoyable to both now that they battled another as equals.

And through this all, Yennefer knew that Tissaia wanted her and she relished in it almost as much as in this child of magic and defiance and spitting destiny in the face that was growing within her.

Yennefer knew lust, and she knew seduction.

She knew how to play people’s desires, how to make them come true or deny them or even shape them into something that suited her. She was beautiful, after all, and she had paid a high enough price for it.

She felt no desire to pull Tissaia’s strings and did not feel her own pulled either.

What they had was a dance of words with meanings to be read between the lines, with lingering looks and touches that burned but never went anywhere to do more than tease and leave them wanting more. It was as thrilling as it was infuriating, she wasn’t used to people having the self-control to keep up the chase for any noteworthy length of time.

Yennefer was relieved to learn that she didn’t feel self-conscious about her changing body, taking every change as the openly displayed victory it was, and if didn’t Tissaia didn’t agree with her reading, then she at least kept appreciating the view.

They didn’t kiss again after that first kiss, neither willing to be the first to admit to the attraction between them but there were a hundred heart-stopping almost kisses and Yennefer became intimately familiar with Tissaia’s smell, with the softness of her cheek when her lips just barely failed to meet Tissaia’s and the curve of her ear when she whispered to her words of seduction wrapped up in challenge.

Through it all, Yennefer didn’t think very much about the child that would be the end result of her pregnancy. She wanted to be a mother, yes, but she had never thought much about the realities of having and raising a child, all the small and large ways in which her life would change when the baby in her arms couldn’t be returned to her mother after wistfully cradling her.

The day she stood in her quarters, shell-shocked at the first flutter inside her belly, she could no longer ignore her future and the would-be nursery that still stood empty like an accusation.

All her life long, she had been determined to need nobody but herself. A few more months and she would never again have nobody but herself.

For the first time in many, many years, Yennefer of Vengerberg wondered if _everything_ might be a little bit more than she wanted to handle on her own.

“I like to watch you teach,” she told Tissaia after the students had left. She leaned against the wall, her growing belly very visible in the tight dress she wore – ever since her body was remade, she had never hidden herself away and she certainly would not start now.

“Do you?” The look Tissaia shot her was mildly unimpressed. “I believe what you like is to disturb my class.”

Yennefer’s red lips shaped into a smile. “That, too,” she admitted. It was true, though, she did like to watch Tissaia teach. There were a fierce passion and a deep caring in her for her students, for her magic studies, for all that Aretuza was.

She sauntered towards Tissaia, a sway to her hips which she knew would captivate Tissaia’s attention. “Don’t tell me you can’t handle a challenge,” she said, voice dropped to a low, intimate purr. She caught Tissaia’s gaze, then broke it when she stepped behind her. She stopped there, right behind her, close enough for her belly to brush against her as she leaned in even closer and brushed stray hairs away from the back of Tissaia’s neck. Her fingertips caressed over her skin and she saw Tissaia shiver in response. “Don’t tell me you don’t enjoy a challenge.”

“Say what you have to say, Yennefer.” Despite her demand, Tissaia’s voice held a gentle undertone, amused and, dare she call it such, even affectionate.

Yennefer’s smile widened. “So impatient… I thought the great rectoress would know how to bide her time.”

“Yennefer.” This time, the undertone had shifted to a warning.

She rolled her eyes though Tissaia couldn’t even see it. “Very well. No games.” Sometimes Tissaia was terrible at letting her have her well-deserved fun… or simply indulging the games she used to evade what she wasn’t ready to face heads-on yet. Nothing but that left then, if Tissaia wouldn’t stand for less.

Pride had Yennefer nudging Tissaia so _she_ would be the one turning around to face her. She regretted that tiny pettiness almost when she read the annoyance written on Tissaia’s elegant face, yet at the same time, she didn’t. It gave her an excuse to smooth away the frown with her fingers, then gave her another excuse to let her fingertips linger against these lips she had dreamed of for so long before she first kissed them. Throughout all this, Tissaia watched her, quite patiently waiting for Yennefer to lay her cards on the table.

“The baby kicked,” she said simply. “It gave me reason to think about the future.” She could read it in the gleam in Tissaia’s eyes, she was working herself up to say something sarcastic. Yennefer’s fingers pressed down firmer against her lips, her own eyes glinting with the demand to let her speak.

Only, for all that she knew how to use words as a weapon as much as her beauty, as she stood there now with Tissaia right in front of her and willing to listen, it was terrifying to give words to all her thoughts and feelings. She knew what she felt, yes, but it was tangled and too complicated to put into simple words.

Everything between Tissaia and her had always defied words, they had never been just one thing, and they were both far too good at pushing people away when they started talking.

But she wouldn’t cower. She _wouldn’t_.

“I thought about the future.” Yennefer met Tissaia’s eyes, met them unafraid and without hesitation. “I want you in mine,” she said, her voice as firm as her eyes. Only the slightest hint of wariness lurking at the corner of her eyes betrayed that she wasn’t quite as certain of her welcome as she tried to pretend.

The caution in Tissaia’s eyes disappeared, replaced by something… something loving and warm and so very intense that it made Yennefer squirm with emotions she still couldn’t fully give word to as well as she liked. “I had been waiting for you to say that,” she said, a lot quieter, a lot softer than she would ever be seen when she acted as the stern rectoress.

They looked at another for long moments, both waiting for the other to make the next move.

Much like that day she had breezed into Aretuza, Yennefer decided to do away with words altogether.

Her lips found Tissaia’s lips and her hands found Tissaia’s waist and she swallowed the little noise she made before her lips parted for Yennefer’s tongue.

It was not a sweeter kiss than the first one they had shared, they were still women made of sharp edges, but it was far more deliberate. Every slide of their tongues was driven by long-deliberated purpose now and Yennefer thrilled in it as much as she thrilled in Tissaia’s taste and the way she urged closer, pressing herself against Yennefer as if she wanted to slip under her skin.

Yennefer’s hand cupped her breast through the far too proper dress she wore. Tissaia’s fingers closed around her wrist, their grip firm, yet she didn’t pull her hand away, she just guided her higher to where fabric gave way to the bare skin of her décolletage. Yennefer’s fingers touched bare skin and soon, her lips followed.

Tissaia’s sharp inhale sent shivers down Yennefer’s spine as she, smiling, left red lipstick marks just above the swell of her breasts. Quick, determined fingers found the fastenings of Tissaia’s dress and tugged it down to pool at her waist, and her mouth slipped lower to the curve of her breasts, then to her nipples and her smile only widened when she felt Tissaia’s hands make quick work of Yennefer’s own dress.

Rapidly approaching footsteps echoed in the hallway. Tissaia stilled, an iron grip on Yennefer’s hair making her still as well just as she was about to suck a pebbled nipple into her mouth.

She looked up at her, lipstick-red lips curled into a smirk. This pause did give her time to let her gaze wander appreciatively up and down Tissaia’s body. “Scared of discovery?”

“This is a classroom,” Tissaia said, her voice just a little breathless. Her fingers, like claws, still dug into Yennefer’s hair.

The footsteps passed by.

Yennefer’s tongue darted out. “Do you want me to stop?” she asked pointedly.

Tissaia gave her another yank, tugging her down to guide her lips back to her breasts. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

With another smile and an oh so sweet kiss, Yennefer obeyed.


End file.
